Turnbull targets cynical politics

Michelle Grattan

LIBERAL frontbencher Malcolm Turnbull has condemned the ''deficit of trust'' in Australian politics, calling on MPs to avoid raising false expectations and misrepresenting opponents' positions.

Delivering the George Winterton lecture in Perth last night Mr Turnbull, a key pro-republic campaigner before the 1999 referendum, also admitted the direct election of a president - which he trenchantly opposed in the 1990s - ''may be the only bullet in the republican arsenal'', and could work.

And he has strongly attacked the narrow focus of Parliament question time, urging that the prime minister only appear on some days, leaving ministers to be probed on a wider range of issues.

''For the last two years the questions from the opposition have been almost entirely focused on people smuggling and the carbon tax. Are they really the only important issues facing Australia?'' he said.

He said this was not criticising Tony Abbott or Julia Gillard. ''There was a concentration of themes when I was leader and Kevin Rudd was prime minister. It is the consequence of having the Prime Minister the focus of question time every single day.''

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The former opposition leader said the clarity of political discourse was essential for good government and the nation's future. ''Yet paradoxically, there is almost nowhere else in our national life where the incentives to be untruthful or to purposefully mislead are so great, and the adverse consequences of such behaviour so modest.''

Many if not most Australians believed important issues were being overlooked or routinely misrepresented. All too often the system rewarded spin, exaggeration and misstatements, Mr Turnbull said. He instanced the ''hopeless, confused, hyper-partisan nature'' of the climate change debate. In 2010 Mr Turnbull crossed the floor to vote in support of Labor's emissions trading scheme.

He also said Australians were ashamed of the parliament, seeing it as ''nothing more than a forum for abuse, catcalling and spin''.

''If you love your country … and care deeply about our nation's future, there is nothing more certain to arouse your fury and invite your contempt than listening to an entire House of Representatives question time'', Mr Turnbull said.

He pointed to Britain where the PM took questions for half an hour on Wednesdays, while question time dealt with other departments on other days.

Mr Turnbull said a directly elected president in an Australian republic need not become a rival source of power to the PM. Such a president would have access to a ''bully pulpit of unique prestige and authority … Think of a shock jock perhaps - but with credibility - and more butlers.''

But in practice, if the first few directly elected presidents performed their duties impartially, ''the presidency could evolve into a constitutionally functional institution in line with most views of what is needed''.